What is the deal with Kadokawa / Fujimi Shobo?
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First topic here, I hope its posted accordingly.
Pretty new to the LN game myself, recently gotten my first two, "Your name" and "Rising of the shield hero" - really enjoyed them.
For the last 2-3 weeks been searching frantically for LN news in the west, especially licenses. A name that I see everywhere is Kadokawa and the lack of licenses from them.
Why is this so? I'm pretty sure they are huge in the industry, and they have huge titels as well yet why is it so hard to get a LN from them? Shouldnt they be happy that a work they publish is getting translated in another language? I just dont get it
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@happy you picked a great day to post cause @DoubleMangekyo just made a topic about what companies have what titles licensed from which companies.
read it here and drop them an upvote for all their hard work.
As for why Kadokawa is so elusive there can be many reasons and we will never concretely know anything for a fact.
What we can say is that Kadokawa owns a majority share of Yen Press so it would stand to reason they want their own subsidiary to profit and would give them “first dibs”
Another thing (I can only assume) is that as you said they are HUGE so their licensing fees would also reflect that. A publisher may say I could get 2 series which will sell moderately well for the price of that 1 series form Kado which may sell very well. (Again just speculation)
Also we are now in a good position cause after nearly 2 years Kado has started licensing series to JNC (albeit with some restrictions like no textless illustrations on the premium edition books) so one way or another more Kadokawa properties will be coming to the rest of the world (legally and professionally translated of course)
And that is just what I was think when I read your post.
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Another thing (I can only assume) is that as you said they are HUGE so their licensing fees would also reflect that. A publisher may say I could get 2 series which will sell moderately well for the price of that 1 series form Kado which may sell very well. (Again just speculation)
Yes, I do think you migght be right on that. I guess It's expected that they would want more money for a license, yet in the same way, the ones who license it can expect (in most cases) for it to sell well, so I do think that in the long run it will pay for itself and make money.
Also we are now in a good position cause after nearly 2 years Kado has started licensing series to JNC (albeit with some restrictions like no textless illustrations on the premium edition books) so one way or another more Kadokawa properties will be coming to the rest of the world (legally and professionally translated of course)
Yes, your right on that one. Especially since they just licensed "Amagiri" under the Fujimi Fantasia label one can only hope we'll get more from them.
Really hoping for "Akashic Records" and "Kimi to Boku no Saigo no Senjo, Aruiha Sekai ga Hajimaru Seisen".
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From what I have heard from other people who have wanted to license things from Kadokawa (though not light novels), the bit about them insisting on high licensing fees is spot on.
And to their credit, most of what people always want to see from them are some of their biggest and most successful properties, so I don't think it's entirely unreasonable for them to not be willing to settle on nickles and dimes from a niche overseas market. Kadokawa themselves are responsible for the modern "media-mix" marketing strategy that dominates the anime/manga/LN market and, to some extent, responsible for the LN market being as big as it is at all. They've probably earned the right to puff out their chests as far as valuing their properties goes.
